Matthew 7

Matthew 7:23

23. 23. Many will say to me in that day, &c.] Many will say to Me in the day of judgment, Lord, have we not embraced Thy true religion, and taught and preached it to others? And have we not had so great faith, as even to cast out devils and work miracles in Thy name? Will Thou not therefore now receive us, and acknowledge us for Thy true disciples? But I will reject them, saying, Notwithstanding ye have done all these things, yet, since in your lives and conversations ye did not obey My commandments, I never looked upon you as My true disciples, and do not now acknowledge or approve you; “depart from me,” &c. Dr. S. Clarke.

Matthew 7:27

27.—the floods came.] In the hilly country of Judea the floods were extremely violent. —and great was the fall of it.] A lively emblem of the rain which will one day overwhelm the unhappy man, who trusts to an outward profession and form of man, which built his house upon the sand:

Matthew 7:28

28.—the people were astonished &c.] Both the matter and the manner of our Saviour’s teaching were infinitely beyond every thing they had ever heard before. He did not, like the heathen philosophers, entertain his hearers with dry metaphysical discourses, nor did He, like the Jewish rabbies, content Himself with dealing out ceremonies and traditions. He drew off their attention from these trivial things to the greatest and noblest objects. The morality He taught was the purest the soundest, the sublimest, the most perfect, that had ever before entered into the imagination, or proceeded from the lips, of man. And this He delivered in a manner the most striking and impressive; in short, sententious, solemn, weighty rules and maxims, or in familiar, natural, affecting similitudes and parables. With a consummate knowledge too of the human heart, He detected every irregular desire before it ripened into action. Bp. Porteus.

Matthew 7:29

29.—as one having authority.] Other teachers of morality had no means of enforcing their advice; but our great Lawgiver’s precepts are all Divine commands. He spoke in the name of God; He called Himself the Son of God. He spoke in a tone of superiority and authority, which no one before had the courage or the right to assume; and, finally, He enforced all that He taught by the most solemn and awful sanctions, by a promise of eternal happiness to those who obeyed Him, and a denunciation of the most tremendous punishment to those who rejected him. Bp. Porteus. —and not as the scribes.] When the scribes delivered their doctrines to the people, they delivered them expressly as the doctrines of men, grounding them on the authority of their distinguished doctors; Christ, on the contrary, spake boldly from Himself, delivering His commands as the commands of God. Grotius. Chap. VIII. ver. 2.—there came a leper] See notes at Levit. xiii. 2. —and worshipped him.] Kneeling, Mark i. 40; and falling down before Him, Luke v. 12. Dr. Whitby. Christ cleanseth the leper, healeth the centurion’s seroant, Anno DOMINI 31. a Mark 1. 40. Luke 3. 12.